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Duolingo Sucks, Now What?

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Re: Duolingo Sucks, Now What?

#131

Post by ttfkam »

AlgoRitmo wrote: post #115
ttfkam wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literacy and conversation are two very different skills with Duolingo being better at the former. There is little doubt that all that Duolingo repetition over three years aided your ability to jump start your conversational ability. Very few folks can start from scratch and watch shows in a new language without subtitles in just a few weeks. Then there's the issue of accents. There isn't a single Spanish language des…

You mean nobody can start duolingo and watch shows in a new language without subtitles shortly after

I mean nobody can start to learn any foreign language in any modality (even immersion) and watch shows in that new language without subtitles a few weeks after with the possible exception of shows like Plaza Sésamo, but even that would be a hard sprint.

The Defense Language Institute has Spanish at 36 weeks, Russian at 48 weeks, and Mandarin at 64 weeks. And those courses are NOT for the faint of heart. They are for folks who can get down and grind on language learning.

Only prodigies could learn in substantially shorter time, like this guy. https://youtu.be/_GXjPEkDfek

You and I are not that guy.

Re: Duolingo Sucks, Now What?

#132

Post by soperj »

wenc wrote: post #130
soperj wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did years of French immersion in Canada, only to go to France a few years after i had finished and realized I didn't know French as well as I thought I did (I felt like I was nearly bilingual). A few years after that, with zero practice, I went to Montreal and could understand everything perfectly, and had zero problem communicating. That's when I realized that I had learned Quebecois and not French.

I'm curious where you did French immersion? As far as I can tell what my friends' tell me (their kids are in French immersion in Ontario), French immersion teaches standard French, not the Quebecois patois (which we call le joual). Canadian French differs from European French in few areas like pronunciation and vocabulary, but it is very much still the same language and mutually intelligible.

In Alberta, one of the original French Canadian communities with a number of families that have lived there for generations. Accent differs considerably, and use of slang in France seemed significantly greater. We definitely learned things like "les bas" as socks, and not "chaussette".

Re: Duolingo Sucks, Now What?

#133

Post by tuna74 »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #14

I've been running through the Japanese course daily for the last 2 months. I'm learning to read somewhat , but I doubt that if I was to speak I would be understood. I understand there are limitations to this format. However, what drives me nuts is the fact I can't just enable the Japanese keyboard (which I've installed) to type out answers. Instead I just select the correct predefined answer from a list. This allows…

It works for Chinese input for me.

Re: Duolingo Sucks, Now What?

#134

Post by 93po »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #128
93po wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just started Japanese and on the web client for me I can type answers with my keyboard in Japanese mode just fine. Including submitting answers with kanji even though it hasn’t covered any yet

Interesting. Are you on mobile web, or desktop? I tried on mobile web on a tablet and phone, but haven't tried desktop.

Desktop

Re: Duolingo Sucks, Now What?

#135

Post by ghusto »

deprecative wrote: post #125
ghusto wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, no app, website, methodology or anything else is going to gain you fluency. The sole way of gaining fluency is speaking the language, and all that goes along with that (mostly it's integrating into the culture, because language is an extension of culture and if you don't get the culture, you won't get the language). You need to know very little of the language to get started. Just find someone who's willing t…

Honestly, this just made me excited for AI in these apps. Imagine if you could just have a conversation with a personalized language coach constantly to help you learn a language and immerse yourself in it. Heck, this is HN. Who knows, maybe it's already in the works by someone around here. I think the first few iterations will be rough especially while "AI" generations remain close to current. Though I haven't messe…

That actually sounds great. If it were particularly smart, it could even take apart the bits of the language you were having problems with — and unbeknownst to you — concentrate on developing those with you.

Re: Duolingo Sucks, Now What?

#136

Post by ghusto »

jwells89 wrote: post #85
ghusto wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, no app, website, methodology or anything else is going to gain you fluency. The sole way of gaining fluency is speaking the language, and all that goes along with that (mostly it's integrating into the culture, because language is an extension of culture and if you don't get the culture, you won't get the language). You need to know very little of the language to get started. Just find someone who's willing t…

Speaking frequently absolutely helps a lot, but I’ve found in my on-an-off language studies (as time allows) that vast amounts of input is also effective if finding speakers isn’t practical. Reading content a bit above your level with a dual-language dictionary in hand as well as watching native content while actively trying to understand what’s being said paired with SRS of vocab you’ve picked up while reading will…

That's the frustrating stage with learning a language; the part where you don't know enough to pick up the gist of a sentence, but learning more requires you to first pick up the gist of the sentence.

I'm not sure what the solution for this is, other than to tell you that I got over it with no formal study (or even much _in_formal study, now that I think of it) with time. Just hearing the language all around you helps.

Re: Duolingo Sucks, Now What?

#137

Post by ted_bunny »

hbn wrote: post #38
ted_bunny wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those forums were mainly a band-aid for DL's complete refusal to actually explain any of the grammar.

There's an overview for each unit section that has some pretty important explanations, and nothing really directs you towards it. Still, in terms of forums, a lot of the time Googling will lead you to various subreddits that have some good conversations and explanations.

I'm in Unit 6 of Italian, 11 in Russian, and there have been zero of those. I know which section you're talking about, I check it every time I reach a new unit.

Shouldn't have to google. They made the space for it and created the expectation. They're charging a steep price for flashcards and little else.

Re: Duolingo Sucks, Now What?

#138

Post by ted_bunny »

trey-jones wrote: post #43
ted_bunny wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those forums were mainly a band-aid for DL's complete refusal to actually explain any of the grammar.

Crowd-sourcing is a valid form of support.

If that were even implied to be how the site works, that would be acceptable. They also removed all that. That's garbage "support."
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